"Country Loon"  wrote in message
news:ck4bng$2h53$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> New to this group but an ardent evolutionist I have a question.
> I have noticed a similar thread but this is not quite the same.
>
> Suppose a spaceship lands in central park and out pops the aliens - what
> (logically) will they look like. For instance they are unlikely to look
like
> a green blob of jelly as they would have no mechanism for building
> tools and steering a spaceship.

This makes sense.

> Can we therefore assume that such creatures would have hands
> similar to us, one head,two eyes and two ears and probably two legs.

You could, but I wouldn't.  Looking at your examples functionally, though,
I'd say yes.  For example, they likely need something for grasping and
manipulating objects (tentacles might do), a cognition centre, not
necessarily in a head, sensory orgams (not necessarily two of each), and a
mode of locomotion (if they were water-based, they wouldn't likely be legs).

> Maybe the star-trek idea of alien life is not far from the truth.

I think a few might be not far from Star-trek's more unusual ones, but the
majority (if there are many out there) would be enormous surprises to us,
I'd guess.  (There are lots of weirder ones out there, from Alien and Star
Wars to my personal favorite for this topic - Calvin and Hobbes ;-) .)

> I am not saying that green blobs will not exist but that space-travellers
> must necessarily look similar (though not identical to us). A dolphin
> cannot pilot a machine however smart it is unless there are 'speech'
> driven controls and even then there would have to be an evolution
> in technology from the primitive stage to get there in the first place.

Not a dolphin, but how about a more evolved octopus or squid-like creature?

> Or is this arrogance?

Not necessarilty arrogance.  Just thinking inside the box too much, perhaps.

> Can somebody invent a fictional character that could pilot a spaceship
> that was radically different from the basic human form and that
> makes sense in an evolutionary framework.   Tom

One's been mentioned (squid-like), but how about something more insect-like
(exoskeleton - maybe there's some reason of which I'm not aware why these
"can't" grow big enough to support a large enough brain) or six-legged
mammal-like (with for example, the middle ones having evolved into
graspers/manipulators).   I'd guess you could come up with lots of body
plans that might possibly evolve intelligence and technology on other worlds
that would vary significantly from humans.  Even with staying with
carbon-based roots.

And if they're out there and able to travel, eventually they'll send a probe
if the planet looks interesting enough from afar.  And if we proove
interesting and have a compatible environment, eventually they'd send life,
I'd guess.  Look at how far we've come technologically in the past 300
years.  Can anyone seriously think we won't *eventually* travel to other
star systems (if, of course, we survive)?  Regards, Brett.
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